Advent is a time for celebrating God's coming to us, but not only at Christmas

Sunday, 11/30/14

Today
is the first day of Advent, a word which means “He is coming,” and it refers to
the Lord coming to us. We like to restrict Advent to preparing us for the
Lord’s coming to us on Christmas in 2014, but the Church does not oblige us
there. No, she uses a wide range of readings at Mass during Advent to prepare
us for his coming in many different ways.

He came
into the world back in the year One. He will come in power and glory at the end
of the world. Today’s Mass warns that he will come for each of us individually
on the last day of life for each of us. But perhaps it is foolish of us to wonder when God will come to us. I say that because he is never away from us, we know this because St. Paul assures us that “God
is not far from any of us, for in him we live and move and have out being.”